


Tale As Old As Time

by playitagainsam



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Beauty and the Beast Elements, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2563718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playitagainsam/pseuds/playitagainsam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, where Clara is Beauty and Twelve is the Beast. </p>
<p>  <i> She stepped closer, and saw his face more clearly in the glow of the faint light. It was narrow and covered in silver fur, and his eyes were bluer than the sky on a spring day. She raised her hand as if to touch his face, but she put it down at once. </i></p>
<p>  <i>“Have you always been a Beast?” she asked, and he looked at her sadly.</i></p>
<p>  <i>“Perhaps.” he answered, and he said no more.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tale As Old As Time

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [From the Garden You Can See the Wild Wood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2530388) by [RandomBattlecry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomBattlecry/pseuds/RandomBattlecry). 



> I recently read a beautiful Red Riding Hood AU for _In the Forest of the Night_ (click on the link above and read it, it's so darn good) and I thought of writing my own fairy tale AU, using Beauty and the Beast. This is based on different versions of the fairy tale.
> 
> Thank you again to my amazing beta, [theyhadcookies](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theyhadcookies/profile), who also gave me the title of this fic.

Beauty, she was called, and that was what she was. Brown eyes, large and curious as she watched caterpillars crawl on leaves of roses; soft hands, gentle as they touched the pages of worn books; lips the color of ripening apples, always smiling, always laughing. The townsfolk knew her name, but to them she was the Beauty, and that was what they called her amongst themselves as she passed by on her morning walks, the scent of roses following her.

Her father was an old merchant, her mother dead since she was little, and he had lost everything in a storm that raged over the sea, his ships sunk by waves and wind and darkness.  And so he borrowed from the town moneylender, promising to repay him in a few months time.

The time soon came, and still he had nothing to give. The lender’s son, however, had taken a liking to his daughter.

“We should give him more time,” the young man said to his father . “But it might help him if I marry the girl should he be unable to pay, so he’ll be free from his troubles, and you might even get a grandson.” And so the lender agreed.

But seven nights had passed, and mired with debt and despair, the merchant left to travel to the city in search of some fortune.

“I’ll come back for you, dear Clara,” he said to his daughter, calling her by her true name, and set off towards the woods and the city far beyond. The Beauty was left alone.

The woods were deep and dark, gnarled branches above and dead leaves below. It was full of whispering shadows that followed the merchant as he rode on, his beating heart drowned by the hum of a silence that was not silent. Hours and hours passed, but the shadows only drew closer, larger, louder. He rode faster in his fear, rode on until the shadows drowned him like the waves in the storm, and the darkness covered him and he could no longer see where he was headed.

And so as it goes, he stopped before a tall iron gate that should not be there but was. Beyond the gate was a castle, its stone walls gleaming a deep blue. The gates opened, and although he knew that he should turn away, he entered. The doors opened as well, and from within he could see the faint glow of a green light. _Come in, come in_ , it seemed to say, but he did not know how he could hear it. And yet he entered, and saw the small green flame from the candelabra on a table by the doorway, and took it as he walked deeper within.

The castle was empty and cold, no breath of life could be heard. He walked past faded tapestries and cobwebbed portraits, past tarnished armor and a ticking clock, and as he walked he came upon more clocks, and rows and rows more of clocks that ticked in the silence of the dead castle. He soon reached another doorway, and as it opened before him he saw a garden of roses beyond.

_Oh, my daughter, you would love these_ , he said to himself, and his fingers brushed against their thorns. One rose had caught his eye, redder and more beautiful than all the rest, and he plucked it to give his daughter once he returned. And as he held the flower in his hands, the castle awoke, and a loud roar filled the air from within.

“Thief,” came a voice, cold as ice and deep as the sea that drowned his ships. From the shadows of the castle stepped a tall figure, but it was no man. His face was covered in silver fur, his blue eyes full of anger. A Beast, large and looming, wearing a dark coat lined with red silk, red as the roses that bloomed in the cold, lightless garden. The merchant cowered. 

“Please,” he pleaded. “I only wanted to show the rose to my daughter.”

“Ah, foolish man. Didn’t you think of asking first? You, a stranger, enter my home, and you have the audacity to take something that belongs to me.” 

The Beast circled the man slowly, his hands behind his back as he thought aloud.

“Now what should I do with you? Leave you to the darkness, or to the cold?”

“Please, please, my daughter is waiting for me. I can’t leave her for long.”

The Beast stopped circling him, and came closer, towering over the merchant and a blue fire roaring in his eyes. “Then I’ll send for her.”

And so they say she heard her father’s voice, her name carried by the wind in the nighttime. The day after he had left, his horse returned, neighing and stomping outside their door. It had gone mad, the townsfolk said, but she knew better. She cast her eyes to the woods, and walked towards the shadows that called her name.

The woods were deep and dark, gnarled branches above and dead leaves below. But she was not frightened, and the forest seemed to know. The whispers disappeared slowly, and the trees parted and unknotted as she walked on, the path clearing and the shadows giving way to soft light. She walked and walked, until she reached the iron gates that opened at her touch.

“Father?” she called out as she entered through the doors. Somewhere from within, she could hear clocks ticking.

“Father?” she called out, and she saw him standing in the hallway, shaking and cowering in fear. She ran to him, but something stepped out from the darkness, a faint green light illuminating silver fur and blue eyes.

“He has stolen from me,” said the Beast. She looked at him, brown eyes wide but not with fear, only confusion and curiosity.

“What did he take?” she asked. Her brown eyes met his blue, and she did not shrink away.

“He plucked a rose from my garden. He’s a thief.”

She stepped closer to the Beast, and he could see that she was unafraid. “Let me stay in his stead, and I’ll repay you in his place. He wouldn’t have plucked the rose had it not been for me.”

The Beast considered her offer. He could smell her, and she bore the scent of roses. Roses grown in sunshine. 

“Very well,” said the Beast. 

And so the Beauty bid her father farewell, and she remained in the castle with the Beast. But he asked nothing of her as payment, and instead he gave her a room of her own, and allowed her to walk around the grounds freely. They spoke little, turning the other way when they met in corridors, their eyes meeting fleetingly. She would retreat to the rooms filled with faint light and he to those filled with shadows. It seemed, but only seemed, that he was the one afraid. Or perhaps he was ashamed.

It was one night when she entered a room filled with faint light, and she saw that its walls were lined with tall shelves filled with books. The Beast was crouched on a chair in the corner, and she saw that he was reading.

“Are these yours?” she asked him.

She thought she could see him smiling, and he said, “Yes, they are. You may borrow them if you like." 

“How can a Beast read?”

“I have eyes. I can read as well as any man.”

“But you’re a Beast.”

“Aye. That I am.”

She stepped closer, and saw his face more clearly in the glow of the faint light. It was narrow and covered in silver fur, and his eyes were bluer than the sky on a spring day. She raised her hand as if to touch his face, but she put it down at once. 

“Have you always been a Beast?” she asked, and he looked at her sadly.

“Perhaps.” he answered, and he said no more.

She would return to the room often, taking books from the shelf and reading them to pass the time. There were many of them, of different kinds from different places, in all sorts of languages that she did not know even existed. There were books about faraway lands, far beyond the sea; books about men and women, long dead; books about sorcerers and witches, monsters and ghouls; and books about the stars, their light the remnant of dying embers in the universe. He would accompany her as she read, and he would tell her about the stories in the books as though he had lived in them. She would listen, fascinated, and she could hear a warmth and joy in his voice as he regaled her with his tales. As he did, she could hear the clocks ticking from within the castle, their tick-tocking seeming to slow down as time passed.

“Why do you keep so many clocks?” she asked the Beast one evening as they ate their supper.

“So I can tell the time,” he answered simply.

“But why? You never leave the castle walls, there’s nothing you need to do.”

“Perhaps that’s why I need to." 

He looked so sad, so old, so alone. And it made her heart grow heavy.

She fell from a ladder one evening, trying to reach for an old tome in the top shelf of the room of books. She had hurt her ankle, and he found her on the floor gasping in pain. He came to her and knelt by her side, taking her ankle gently with his hands and onto his lap as she winced.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” he said quietly, soothingly, as he stroked her ankle softly, drawing small circles onto her skin.

His claws traveled lightly across her foot, down below to just above her heel, up towards her calf. She watched him, and felt a fire awaken within her. And in an instant, the pain disappeared. Her brown eyes met his blue, and she could see that the same fire that burned inside her was also in him.

She loved the room of books even more since that evening, but she also loved the garden of roses. She remembered the caterpillars that crawled on the leaves of her roses back in her home, how one day she would fine white cocoons in their stead, and how she had seen one break open, a butterfly emerging from within with a beating of its amber wings. There were no caterpillars here, no butterflies. But the roses were redder and more beautiful than any in the world outside, and she loved to be among them. As she touched their petals she understood that they were well cared for, that they had been given time for them to grow.

The Beast had seen how she admired the flowers, never taking them from their stems. He had watched her smile as she touched them, had seen her close her eyes as she took in their scent. The days went by, and the clocks ticked slower and slower.

And so one morning, he came to her and held out his hand.

“Take this,” said the Beast, and he gave her the rose her father had plucked. It was the reddest and most beautiful rose she had ever seen, and it was still whole and alive as though it had been freshly picked.

“Such a beautiful rose,” she said, uncertain. She could see his eyes shining in the faint light.

“I have cared for my roses greatly,” he said. “I’ve tended to them, given them all of my love and all of my time. This castle is empty and cold, and I’ve long been lonely, but these roses have been with me everyday.”

He held the rose gently, and she could hear his soft breathing.

“This rose is the most beautiful of all, and now it’s yours.”

She took the rose in her hands, and could see that it pleased the Beast.

“Why let it go, if it’s made you so happy?” she asked him. And he smiled, but it was sad.

“Because it deserves the sunshine,” he answered. She held out her hand to touch his muzzle, and she felt the softness of his fur underneath her fingers.

The clocks kept ticking, slower, and slower.

One day the Beast told her that she should return to her father. He opened the doors of his castle, and she could see the woods outside. The trees were tall and imposing, but the darkness had disappeared. Somewhere in the distance, she could see the sunlight filtering through the leaves.

“Why did you let me stay here, when you’ve asked nothing from me?” she asked him. “You never asked me to serve you, or to replace the rose.”

“I didn’t need those,” said the Beast. “I shouldn’t have kept you here for so long, I shouldn’t have let you stay at all. I’m sorry.”

“Will I ever return here?” Her heart was torn and her hands were cold.

“Only if you want to,” he said. The Beauty held his paws in her own and kissed the fur by the tips, just beneath his claws. She looked into his blue eyes with her brown, and saw the sadness and regret that had grown inside of him over time.

“I wish you happiness, good Beast,” she said. “I’m sorry to leave you.”

And so she walked past the doors, past the gates that opened at her touch, past the unknotted trees and gnarled roots, on towards the light of the sun. And the Beast watched her, his heart torn and his paws cold, her name dying on his lips and the darkness once again enshrouding him. Somewhere within the castle, the clocks ticking continued to slow down, the intervals reducing into minutes, into hours.

She returned to her father, to their home in the town, and she could hear the townsfolk whispering around her when she passed them by. They said many different things, that she had been captured by bandits and made to suffer many indecencies; that she had run away to flee from marriage to the moneylender’s son; that she had been imprisoned by a menacing monster, a Beast who made her his slave. But she paid them no heed.

Her father was unable to pay the moneylender in her absence, and so he made good their agreement. He brought her to them one day, and the moneylender’s son held out his hand. He was a handsome young man, a soldier who had seen many a battle. She looked at his palm and saw that it was not covered in silver, and his eyes were brown, not blue. Her heart turned cold, but she took his hand and smiled, not saying a word. They were wed that afternoon, and amidst the joy and fanfare around her, she said nothing.

In their wedding bed, he took her in the warm light of a red fire. But her heart was still cold, and she said nothing, made no sound as he gasped and called her name. His hair was not silver, his eyes were not blue.

The rose had stayed the same, redder and more beautiful than all the rest in her garden, and she cared for it and let it bathe in the sunlight. She spoke little to her husband, did not move when he held her waist or kissed her neck. She thought only of the Beast and his castle, so beautiful and yet so cold. She saw him in the morning sky, and she saw him in the soft glow of the moon. She remembered his touch, so gentle and so soft.

Days passed, then months, and still she thought of him.

One morning she awoke, and found that the rose’s petals had begun to fall. She held the flower in her hands, and it crumbled. Outside her house the ground was covered in petals, a red carpet that stretched from the doorway, across the fields, and to the woods beyond.

He was calling her, she knew by the coolness of the wind and the whispers in the shadows.

She left her house without a word, following the trail of rose petals that lined the earth. She walked into the woods. Still, she was not frightened as it became darker the deeper she went. The ground was covered in red, like a river of blood that led to the iron gates that opened at her touch. A sea of petals surrounded the castle, and their scarlet hue contrasting with the walls of blue. She entered through the open doors. It was dark inside, no faint light but at the end of the hall from the doorway to the garden.

The clocks had stopped ticking.

She walked down the hall and out to the garden, and saw the Beast on the ground, lying in the center of a carpet of petals. All the roses that he had cared for had fallen.

“Oh!” she cried, falling to her knees by his side. She took his hands in her own and held his head gently, placing it on her lap.

“Dear Beast,” she sobbed. His heart was beating slowly, and she feared that it would soon stop. She touched his brow with her own, and her tears fell onto his fur. She could feel his breath on her face; it was cold.

“Out of time, I’m afraid,” he said, his voice soft and weak.

Her brown eyes met his blue, and she understood. And he smiled sadly. She wept and wept.

“Don’t go, don’t go,” she pleaded.

And so she kissed him softly, tenderly. She wanted to breathe her warmth into him, to give him some of her life. She fought the darkness and the cold with her grief, her fingers lightly brushing against his fur. She kissed him, and she gave him what he had given his roses long ago. A fire was blazing within her, a fire that spread through her veins, and it could burn down the woods around them if it had escaped. She kissed him harder, deeper, and she felt his lips move against hers.

When she opened her eyes, the Beast had gone. 

Her lips were upon a man’s, his face narrow and silver hair upon his head. His skin was pale and soft, folding into lines in hollows and crevices, his fingers long and elegant. He opened his eyes, and they were a brilliant icy blue, blue as the morning sky. He breathed deeply, his heart beating, full of life.

“My Beast,” she whispered against his mouth, and he touched her face gently. 

“Clara, my Clara,” he said. “I’m here.”

In the bed of fallen roses they both lay, and made love in the faint light that brightened into the deep red of sunrise. Her Beast was a man, his skin cool against her skin, his breath warm against her neck. She touched the silver of his hair, beheld the blue of his eyes.

Somewhere within the castle, a clock started ticking.

************


End file.
